


the road through the thistles

by NIQtraust



Series: the ever-lonely road [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Pre-Slash, Recap, Regret, Temeria, United under Nilfgaard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29761554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NIQtraust/pseuds/NIQtraust
Summary: A look at the events before "an ever-lonely road."
Relationships: Iorveth & Vernon Roche
Series: the ever-lonely road [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082663
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Iorveth

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, why it took me so long to update is I started writing a different version of this second instalment and straight-up HATED it. The characterisation was way off, I didn't like where the plot was going, etc. So I lost motivation for a while. Also, school has been a struggle for me recently and my procrastination has been kicking me while I was already down, which wasn't helping. I got hit with inspiration for a way to proceed with this series though, so I wrote it instead of working. Hope it stands up to the first part. I also have a plan for where this series is going to go in the long run, which is hinted at in this fic.

Iorveth had been there from the beginning. Born into a dying race, in a world that hated his kind, he had watched. He had always been the watcher. His mother, a smart, if fragile, elf had called him that since he was little. He was a fighter, but more importantly, he watched.

He watched as the dh'oine came. He saw them settle lands that had once belonged to the Aen Seidhe. He was pushed back, seething anger rising in him. He learned to use a sword and his mind in the cold world that had once listened to every song he sang, but had turned its back on him in favour of a murderous race.

He picked up a sword and he led those that would follow him after his mother burned in the fires of the wars the dh'oine caused.

He fought in those wars, too. He was a resident of this world, after all, and like hell was he going to let dh'oine kings decide the fate of his people for him. He sided with the Black Ones and fought beside his brethren, only to be betrayed.

Somehow, Iorveth survived.

He led the remains of the Scoia'tael after his escape. He watched as yet another human king turned on those he loved. Foltest demanded Iorveth's death, so Iorveth chose the sword over the flute once more.

The Blue Stripes were a small relief in a world full of hurt and pain. Strange as it was, Iorveth could almost relax in the face of the challenge that Vernon Roche presented. They were bitter enemies without a doubt, but Roche seemed to have a sympathy that Iorveth had thought was forever absent in dh'oine.

He stayed his hand whenever the Commander of the Blue Stripes was at his mercy and Roche did the same when Iorveth was at his.

He watched as Saskia carved out a free state in the Pontar Valley for nonhumans, with his help. He watched as his Scoia'tael, who had wearied of fighting, chose to accept their lot in life and to live under Saskia. He didn't blame them. They had fought a losing battle for most of their lives, fueled only by the hatred and the desperate hope the younger elves possessed. The few older survivors knew there was no hope. The best the Aen Seidhe could get was choosing how they went out, and even the hope for that was dwindling.

So Iorveth watched, and didn't blame them.

Then he turned back around and led his remaining men back out into the wilderness, where he had to continue the fight and save what lives he could. Because the dh'oine knew no mercy, not even for elven women and children.

He watched the long years of his life slip away with his fingers clenched around the hilt of his swords. He saw kingdoms rise up with the flames of hatred, only to be burnt down again when they lost momentum. He looked on as his people were slaughtered before him despite his best efforts. He watched as his body became beaten down and broken, scars tracing their way across his skin.

He watched as everyone he loved died and he was forced to remain alive, invincible despite his failures. He watched as he was cursed with survival time and time again, the last of a dying breed, doomed to see his people perish beneath sword and the iron of Nilfgaard's treaty.

He watched.


	2. Roche

Roche had always fancied himself a survivor. He'd grown up fighting, learning to use his fists and then a knife almost before he could walk. His father was absent, a distant presence that filled him with hurt and rage, and his mother became a shell of herself as he grew older. It fell to Roche to protect them both, Roche to feed them and to ensure they stayed alive in a world determined to kill them.

His efforts had done fuck all, in the end. He kept his mother safe enough for three years, but he couldn't save her from the sickness that took her body and then her mind. He woke to her screams and feverish murmurs every night, even now, when she was long dead and he no longer knew her face.

There were days he wished he had joined her when he could have.

Instead, Roche had found himself kneeling before King Foltest, the man who had saved him and done what his father had never done. Foltest made him into a warrior and an intelligence officer, a man tasked with carrying out the orders no one else could. Foltest had done everything for him, so when Roche was ordered to take his Blue Stripes and quell the Scoia'tael, he marched out without hesitation. He'd never held much ill will towards nonhumans, but the Scoia'tael we re threatening Temerians and his king had ordered him to kill them. So Roche did.

Which brought him to an interesting situation regarding an elf with a red bandana, a broken air to him, and eternal pride. Roche had little interest in killing Iorveth once he faced off against the elf the first few times. He underestimated Iorveth again and again, never enough to seriously wound him but enough for Roche to feel the blow.

He and his Blue Stripes attacked with all their strength when it was Temerians being threatened, when their caravans were attacked on Temerian roads, but Roche ordered his men to stand down when the Scoia'tael were in their camps in the woods. He refrained from putting women and children to the sword where he could. Roche was a soldier, and he fought soldiers where he could. He may have been hardened but he still had enough of a heart to remember the pain of his mother dying beside him, leaving him alone in the world and slotted to die at the hands of others.

He kept his sword away from the children and burned and sacked nothing.

Roche wasn't sure why Iorveth spared him time and time again. Why he was allowed to survive despite his crimes and the elf blood staining his hands. Maybe it was because if Roche died, he would be replaced by someone worse. Maybe it was because Iorveth was tired of killing, too.

Roche didn't know, and he didn't have a way to find out, so he accepted it and kept fighting.

He spared Iorveth, too, because better the enemy he knew. The elf intrigued him with how similar they were, and Roche got the sense that, in another life, they would have been friends. As it was, they were on opposite sides of a war doomed to extinguish one of their races. Roche knew Foltest well enough to know that his king would only be satisfied once the nonhumans within Temeria were dead. He might not even be satisfied then.

Roche didn't understand the hatred. He didn't understand how a man could hate a race enough to want to kill them off. He'd been fighting all his life, and though he hated many of those he had fought, he didn't hate their race. The individual had wronged him and he punished them for it, but he didn't give a damn about the rest.

But the world was shifting away from what he knew. The treaty with Nilfgaard was seeing to that.

He'd survived by fighting, by the strength of his sword, voice, and fists. That was all he knew, but he also knew that the world no longer cared for strength of arms, but for sharpness of tongue and the ability to bow for a foreign crown.


	3. Chapter 3

The treaty with Nilfgaard had been established to bring peace to the lands south of the Pontar River. Nilfgaard had united the kingdoms and territories in that area under a single banner, eliminating the need for both the Scoia'tael and the Blue Stripes. Cast adrift, Iorveth and Roche would have been loose ends that could easily prove troublesome: should they get it in their heads to rebel, the two could very well gather a force. Emhyr was not a fool. He was aware that the lands he had claimed were restless and angry still. It would take many years before they were truly content with their new lot in life.

He was willing to allow some of them to remain some portion of their autonomy, should they prove themselves trustworthy. Temeria, for instance, was home to many strong-willed patriots. Rather than try and crush them, he could instead allow them to have some power. Never enough to break free, of course, but he wanted unity and uniformity, and to have the final control of the lands. He cared little who did the planting, or who oversaw it. 

Vernon Roche and Iorveth, however, alongside other former soldiers as leaders, were a risk Emhyr could not take. They were a threat to his plans, so he kept them close. Set the two of them up in Nilfgaard proper and worked to keep them content and under watch, but with enough freedom that they wouldn't feel threatened.

Their friendship came with little surprise. Emhyr had long known of their admiration for each other, although he had not known how deep it ran. But he had isolated the two of them from their men, knowing that if the Blue Stripes or the Scoia'tael were together, they could pose a threat. That isolation driving Roche to Iorveth came as no surprise, except in that Emhyr had expected it to happen at a later date.

But no matter. He had an empire to run and individuals to monitor, although much of that could be passed off to Morvan Voorhis, who would one day take his place. With Cirilla nowhere to be found and Emhyr growing ever older with more enemies, he had been forced to select an heir. Morvan, with his dedication and sincerity, had been the only suitable candidate.

Emhyr turned away from the rain-streaked window.

* * *

Roche had hated every second he'd spent in the city of Nilfgaard so far. The gleaming capital, with its sprawling, endless maze of streets, was no Temeria. Was no Vizima, with its familiar markets and sounds, with the silver lilies hanging everywhere he turned, pride in their kingdom evident in the faces of the locals.

Nilfgaardians seemed content, he would give them that. Their city was cleaner and wealthier, the food fresher and the air sweeter. 

But it was even, orderly cobblestones under his boots, not mud with stone slabs that had sunk in. There was no dry dirt clinging to the bottom of his boots, no dirt roads or worn cloth stalls. No harsh voices bawling their goods. The patrolling guards wore black and gold, not blue.

"You're homesick," one of the men Roche drank with had told him. Roche couldn't deny the truthfulness of the statement, but for him, home was somewhere that no longer existed. Even if he wasn't confined to the city and its surroundings, there was nowhere he could go. His men were scattered across the ruins of Temeria. The golden sun flew where the lilies once had in Vizima. His king was dead, murdered on orders from Emhyr's lips. 

There was simply no need for Roche anymore, and once that thought crossed his mind, he couldn't dislodge it. It was like a pebble stuck in his shoe on a march, ever grinding away at him despite his best efforts to get rid of it.

The thought ate away at him, enough to drive him into the home of a person he never thought he would turn to. 

But in this strange new world that valued cunning and deceit and false smiles over honesty and patriotism, Iorveth was the last connection to home Roche had. He was a fellow survivor.

* * *

The new world Iorveth lived in wasn't so bad, he mused. Nilfgaard was interested in conquering the Aen Seidhe, not slaughtering them. While Iorveth wasn't alone in desiring a state ruled by the Aen Seidhe and only the Aen Seidhe, the survival of his race wasn't something he was willing to compromise. They would die out eventually, of course, pure bloodlines dissolved by half-elves and quarters, but they would know protection while they died. It was a humiliating way to go, but Iorveth didn't mourn the constant fight for his survival.

He did mourn the freedom, though. He had little of that in Nilfgaard proper. There were few other elves around, and those that were had never been Scoia'tael. Emhyr's way of containing him, and a necessary one. Iorveth truly hated the man, and given the opportunity, would gladly stick a blade through his throat. Emhyr had traded the Scoia'tael commanders away. He had used Iorveth's people and then discarded them once they were no longer useful. He had used them time and again, and the Aen Seidhe kept coming back because there was nowhere else to go.

If Iorveth had a commando to back him, he would go out fighting. As it was, he grited his teeth and bided his time.

This new world was condemning, but survivable. He would outlive the Emperor. Iorveth could wait. He was a survivor, after all, and a watcher.

He would watch the spirits of his people crumble before he could save them, but he would try to nonetheless. The Aen Seidhe could no longer choose how they died. 

Iorveth still could, if he waited and struck when the time was right.


End file.
